


Meant To Be You

by Kestrealbird



Category: Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: Background Character Death, Irish Mythology - Freeform, Mystery, Other, gothic horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:40:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24473671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kestrealbird/pseuds/Kestrealbird
Summary: “Do not speak his name,” Diarmuid tells her one night, tucking the blankets around her in the shoddy barn they’re staying in.“Who?” she asks him, trying valiantly to keep her voice steady.Diarmuid smiles; it doesn’t reach his eyes. “No-one,” he tells her quietly. “Just a phantom. He isn’t here for you.”
Comments: 12
Kudos: 32





	Meant To Be You

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted for SO LONG to do a fic like this and if you've seen my blog you can probably figure out who the "phantom" in this story is but if not then >:3c try and figure it out uwu

“Do not speak his name,” Diarmuid tells her one night, tucking the blankets around her in the shoddy barn they’re staying in.

Rikka frowns up at him, confused and unsettled. The air is colder than it should be. She keeps shivering, chills wracking her frame every few minutes. The intervals are getting shorter. “Who?” she asks him, trying valiantly to keep her voice steady.

Diarmuid smiles; it doesn’t reach his eyes. “No-one,” he tells her quietly. “Just a phantom. He isn’t here for you.”

“Is he…here for you, then?”

“Hmm. No, I doubt it.” 

He tucks her in a little tighter, as if trying to shield her from something. He doesn’t touch her skin. Perhaps, she thinks, it is _his_ chill that she can feel, leaking through the leather of his gloves and the thickness of his coat. She doesn’t know why he’s wearing winter clothes in the middle of summer. 

Doesn’t know why he insisted she do the same when settling in for bed.

Rikka is too afraid to ask.

-

This is what she knows; Diarmuid does not show fear, not ever, not even when he confronted his own destiny - his curse, his death, his end of living. And yet, here, now, as he tucks her tightly into bed, his hands shake and his voice stays carefully measured.

Diarmuid does not show fear.

Diarmuid is _afraid._

This is what she knows; Diarmuid is afraid and so Rikka is afraid.

-

There is something in Ireland that scares Diarmuid - something he will not name, no matter how often she asks. 

He tucks her in tightly every night and tells her - warns her - “do not speak his name,” but she doesn’t know what name that is. The chill gets worse. Her shivers wrack her body.

Diarmuid stops touching her. 

On the ninth day of staying here, Rikka tucks herself in.

(On the ninth day of staying here, Diarmuid makes her go to bed wearing his coat. It’s warmer, after that.)

-

When Rikka wakes up an indeterminate amount of time later, the moon shines in through the hole in the ceiling and Diarmuid is nowhere to be found. This, by itself, would not cause her much concern, if not for three simple things.

One: Diarmuid has not left her side since they got here, always sitting in the chair beside or bed or leaning against the wall.

Two: A different man, someone she has never seen before, sits in Diarmuid’s chair instead.

Three: The air around this man feels colder than ice - it seeps into her bones and burns her throat something fierce. She wonders if this is how Ritsuka felt, when he first met Ereshkigal face-to-face. 

(She hopes it isn’t. The chill claws at her eyes, and the tears sting when they fall. Diarmuid’s coat protects her skin but does very little for the rest.)

He sits perfectly straight, shoulders squared and head held high, one leg crossed over the over, hands resting perfectly poised on his knee. Rikka squints, trying to make out the details of him; it’s like looking through a haze or a mist or a fog. He’s blurred in her vision, almost intangible, but the room around him is still perfectly clear. He’s wearing a long dark coat and a pair of riding gloves - leather, if she knows anything about riding horses. 

She can just about see some sort of heeled shoe or boot if she lets her eyes flicker downwards, but she has to blink a few times to get the image proper.

There’s a shadow along his jawline and his hair is long, falling down his back in thick, loose, familiar curls. It’s his eyes, however, that cause Rikka to shrink back on the bed, hitting the wall behind her.

A brilliant, clear gold shining in the moonlight. Familiar and yet so different. The whites of his eyes are non-existent - all she can see is a black void and nothing else. If she dares look close enough Rikka thinks she might see a tinge of red around his pupils. But she doesn’t dare, and he doesn’t blink, not once, oozing disapproval. 

A dark line stains each cheek, leading from his eyes to his chin.

Rikka doesn’t want to know what it is.

(“Don’t speak his name,” Diarmuid had warned her and she thinks she _knows_ who this phantom _is_ now.)

“Tell me, humanity’s master,” the phantom’s voice is as cold as everything else about him, and there is no inflection nor emotion as he speaks, “do you know who I am?”

Rikka says nothing. The burn in her throat gets worse. She nods, and the burn disappears.

“Liar,” he says, in the same neutral tone as before. She doesn’t know who he is, not really, but he looks so much like Diarmuid that she thinks she has a very good idea. He knows who _she_ is, though, and that frightens her a great deal.

-

(The old gods are dead, she’d been told, time and time again. Their age is over.

Why, then, does one such God sit before her now, no sound to give away his presence, not even a breath upon his tongue?)

-

(The farmer here was nice. He’d had no rooms to spare in his house, but he’d given them free board in his barn and provided soft blankets and good food for their stay.

“How long will you be staying?” He’d asked them and Rikka had frowned, unsure how to explain that she had no real timeframe to go on, because they were investigating things and that always took a while. But the farmer had simply smiled at her and said, “take as long as you need. It’ll be good to have some company again,” and that had been that.

The farmer was nice.)

-

The phantom that sits before her doesn’t break eye-contact. Even when Rikka herself blinks, she knows he does not. The haze around him thickens thickens thickens until all his details fade into obscurity and Rikka can no longer remember what he’d looked like. Only his eyes remain, shining as bright as ever. And they’re gold gold gold, so gold and bright and stark against the haze.

A thin red line appears around his throat. It leaks and gushes and runs down his body, staining all his clothes, and it’s _red red red,_ a bright shining scarlet. 

Too bright, too stark, too _sharp_ for the darkness around them, for the haze that hides the rest of him. 

It is blood, she knows, and her own throat burns with it. She chokes - presses her hands against her neck and though there is nothing there when she pulls them away - no redness to stain her skin and clothes - it feels like she’s bleeding.

“It was meant to be you,” he tells her. Despite the blood rushing down his clothes, dripping onto the floor, his voice is clear as ever. “He felt no pain. He died in his sleep.”

And Rikka chokes and chokes and chokes and the haze gets worse and worse and worse and then -

She wakes up, again, and the sun is up high in the sky and Diarmuid is sitting next to her and there is no blood on the floor.

Rikka feels warmer than she ever has in days.

They missed breakfast. She’s sure the farmer will have some ready for them.

Diarmuid helps her out of bed, fussing, and takes back his coat. “How do you feel?”

“Tired,” she admits. Frowns. Her voice is raw. 

“It’s time to go,” Diarmuid tells her shortly. “We’re done here.”

Rikka’s brows furrow. “But - the farmer -”

“Rikka.” He has never sounded so stern before. “We’re leaving.”

_It was meant to be you._

Rikka stills where she stands. Her hands shake.

_It was meant to be you._

_He died in his sleep._

_It was meant to be you, it was meant to be you, it was meant to be you_

“Is -” she swallows - “is he...okay?”

He sighs and his shoulders fall. “Don’t linger,” he says instead of answering.

Rikka bites her lip and nods.

She thinks she knows where Diarmuid was last night. She thinks she knows what happened. She’s too afraid to press for answers - too afraid to know the truth - so, instead, she forces herself to smile and asks if there is any breakfast.

_It was meant to be you_


End file.
